The discrimination lawsuit between the Mets and former Senior VP/Ticket Sales & Service Leigh Castergine will be on an extended timetable following a status conference Friday morning in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Counsel for Mets COO Jeff Wilpon and club parent company Sterling Equities sought and received permission to have until October '15 to complete factual discovery in the case, seven months later than a proposed timetable from Castergine's counsel. A trial, if the case reaches that point, then would not happen until spring '16 at the earliest.
Judge William Kuntz did grant Castergine's counsel the ability to depose key witnesses such as Wilpon up to 14 hours each over a two-day period, longer than federal guidelines limiting most civil depositions to seven hours. Castergine's counsel also raised the possibility of adding as many as two other parties to the lawsuit, but declined to say whether that would mean additional plaintiffs or defendants. Anne Vladeck, Castergine's lead attorney, declined to comment on the existence or status of any settlement talks between her client and the Mets. The parties will appear before Kuntz on Jan. 23 for another status conference.
